2 Charged In Bomb Plot

NATIONAL DIGEST

April 14, 1995

NEW YORK - — The reported mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing and a man deported from the Philippines this week were charged on Thursday with plotting to blow up U.S. and foreign commercial jets in the Far East.

They are Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, reported mastermind of the February 1993 Trade Center bombing, and Abdul Hakim Murad, who lived with Yousef in an apartment in the Philippines capital of Manila, where bomb-making and other equipment was found last January.

State wins landmark suit

HARTFORD, Conn. - A Connecticut Superior Court judge has ruled in the landmark Sheff vs. O'Neill school desegregation case that the state of Connecticut is not responsible for remedying racial imbalance in its public schools if there is no proof the state created the segregation.

Judge Harry Hammer's 72-page decision on Wednesday night capped court proceedings which have been in progress for six years and which pitted the state against Hartford school children, of whom 93 percent are black or Hispanic.

Teen is ruled a juvenile

NEW YORK - A teen-ager accused in the murder of a Hasidic Jewish scholar during a 1991 race riot in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section will be tried as a juvenile on federal civil rights charges, a judge ruled on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge David Trager's decision means Lemrick Nelson Jr. will face a maximum sentence of five years if he is convicted of violating Yankel Rosenbaum's civil rights in the killing.

Had he been tried as an adult, he could have received a mandatory life sentence if convicted on all counts.

SOUTH

Trucker makes confession

ABINGDON, Va. - A truck driver arrested on Thursday in North Carolina has confessed to the slaying of a woman whose body was dumped along an interstate highway near here in January, authorities said.

Sean Patrick Goble, 28, of Asheboro, N.C., was picked up on a fugitive murder warrant around 8 a.m. in Forsyth County, N.C.

MIDWEST

Teen boosts state's case

CHICAGO - A second teen-ager who accused U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds of having sex with her told a grand jury that Reynolds instructed her on how to recant her claims and offered her $10,000, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also disclosed details of the grand jury testimony of Reynolds' first accuser, Beverly Heard, who said she had sex with Reynolds and another woman three times.

WEST

Irish national pleads

TUCSON, Ariz. - An Irish national convicted of trying to buy a Stinger missile in West Palm Beach in 1990 faces more time in prison for conspiring to help the provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army obtain explosives.

Michael Martin, 37, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in federal court to scheming to obtain a missile which authorities said the group intended to use against British helicopters.

Flood strands visitors

ZION NATIONAL PARK, Utah - A landslide blocked a river and caused flooding in Zion National Park, closing roads, stranding hundreds of visitors and forcing 1,000 campers to higher ground.

About 450 guests and employees were stranded on Thursday at the park's Zion Lodge after the Wednesday night slide on the Virgin River in Zion Canyon.

Gay to run for mayor

WASHINGTON - Assistant Housing Secretary Roberta Achtenberg, the highest-level openly gay official in the government, said on Thursday she is resigning at the end of the month to run for mayor of San Francisco.

"If I'm going to be mayor of San Francisco, I have to begin my campaign immediately," Achtenberg said.